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This episode was interesting. It did a lot with Houtarou's character and also had some good stuff from Chitanda, plus some more info about Houtarou's sister who is the best puppet master of them all. I liked Chitanda better after this ep. She wasn't so over the top in the "I'm curious!" department, and she seemed to gain more depth. Anyway, in the end, this story arc was about building Houtarou up and knocking him down. The way he was left alone without the others to formulate the flawed theory is proof of that, because if any of them had been there, they would clearly have corrected that solution.

I found it odd the way that all of the characters were so serious about the mystery. Well, maybe not so much Mayaka, but Satoshi, Chitanda to a degree, and especially Houtarou were just silly over it. Even though to Houtarou there was a lot riding on it (with him having believed Irisu when she said he was special and all and then being crushed by his mistakes and all the others rubbing it in) it just didn't seem quite right. He ought to have been aware that Irisu was only looking for an ending she could present as a result. There was never any indication that she cared about solving the true mystery. Heck, if I remember right, Houtarou already declined to write an ending for them, so he knew it was a possibility.

Still, that manipulation of him was harsh. All that fuss just to get a script ending. Calling them in, then puffing up Houtarou's ego to get him to deliver a solution. It seems ridiculous that she couldn't think up an acceptable script solution off her own bat.

I like the theories people came up with here better than the true one.

...Makes me wonder if Houtarou's sister will be the final antagonist....

...

...With his sister's involvement in both major arcs, will she play one in the next one, and how so.

Cheers.

Elder sister final boss. She'd be a loli too if the devs really felt like making her overpowered. Yeah, that's right. A loli elder sister that screws with your life halfway across the globe just for the sake of it lol

Jokes aside, wasn't there suppose to be an over-arching theme/mystery that ties all these little mystery arcs together anyway? Perhaps his sister is the big connection here

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It seems people are just focusing on one aspect of this episode; the part where Oreki lost his composure when the three disagreed with his theory.

This had a lot of things going on. Irisu's motive, what happened to Houngou, the proper theory to Houngou's intentions for the film, etc.

If you look at it, the whole mystery part with the movie wasn't the biggest issue to Oreki. Sure it was quite a bit over the top in terms of portrayal but here we really see the emphasis of how proud he was about his personal achievement.

If Oreki was beating his head for messing up the conclusion we'd see something worse when he was at his room during his alone time. Alas no, it's just the natural fidgety feeling when something's bothering you. The most he lost his composure was when he uncovered the reality of Irisu's motives.

I dunno, some are kinda being too harsh about that particular scene and seemingly discredits the merit of the situation. This is somewhat ignoring the depiction of Oreki's personality and injecting our own opinions or views on how this particular character should be.

Sadly Houtarou just got played and manipulated quite well throughout this arc. Still has me kind of annoyed right now. Though having an older sister myself the idea of being used by said sister actually fits so well that it probably boosted my level of annoyance with this episode . Just as troublesome to have Irisu just outright admit to everything. Then throwing out lines like "whether you consider them lies or not is up to you." Completely deflecting any responsibility or seeing herself as being in the wrong at all. Long as she got a conclusion that was entertaining for her and fulfilled her responsibilities it doesn't matter who she uses in the process. That's the kind of person I can't help but seriously dislike. Hopefully this arc is the last we see of Irisu period.

I got the feeling that the subtext for Irisu's last line there is "I wont complain if you hate me / wont forgive me" which is why Houtarou says he feels better on hearing that.

But heh, while I suspected the "locked room murder" wasn't the true mystery I didn't expect that Hongou's "illness" was faked.

As we suspected, the key to the mystery lied in the metal clues and not in the video. In fact, the video was completely misleading since it was different from what Hongou intended. I'm very pleased with the resolution of the mystery -they provided a satisfying answer to every single question we had-, and this arc as a whole. All of the main characters received quite a bit of development in this arc, Houtarou first and foremost. I fully understand why Irisu's deception got him so riled up. I don't like my feeling being played with either.

Irisu was actually a lot more manipulative than I thought. I never would have guess she had also manipulated Hongou into stepping down because she found her script boring. I'm impressed Houtarou's sister managed to see through her so easily. Seems like these detective skills run in the family.

I agree with the people who sympathize with Houtarou and see the somber tone of the episode as justified. It's not the movie that's important, it's how Irisu was leading him and Hongou on with fake complements to try and work things to her own end.

Like how Chitanda feels like she understands Hongou better, I feel like I understand the author a lot more with this episode. It definitely shows that he cares more about character development than about a gripping mystery, which I don't mind at all. Hongou has never appeared on screen and Eba got minor speaking roles, yet I feel as if I understand them more than I do a lot of other extras in other anime.

What really sealed the episode for me as an enjoyable one and really gave me appreciation for Irisu as a character was the final scene with Oreki's sister, where Oreki's sister confronts her with the real reason why she scrapped Hongou's script. Irisu is quick to defend herself and justify why she did what she did. She has a tendency to push fault away from herself, as we have also seen when she was talking with Oreki. But it also shows that she doesn't want to think of herself as a selfish person. She wants to believe that she's manipulating people for the good of the whole, and that what she's doing is objectively good.

The mysterious rope problem.
Looks like Oreki got tricked by that girl.
It's interesting how he overlooked a major inconsistency.
Oreki's in-depth analysis of the club members' behavior and movie was amazing.
So it looks like he was set up to fail from the start.
They sure complicated the hell out of this one and if you don't pay attention you could get lost easily.

Mayaka, Satoshi and Chitanda all showed Houtaru why his theory was wrong, and his reaction was very pleasant, haha.

Then, Houtarou confronts Irisu. The scene was very well played out and the voice acting was phenomenal. Suffice to say, the animation was also top-notch.

In the end, we are given the most likely scenario about Hongou's script and a nice Houtarou x Chitanda moment, hehe.

Anyway, the girl Irisu talked to at first was Hongou, and then Houtarou's sister. I'm sure of it.

All in all, I'm really loving Hyouka! All the mysteries (even the more boring ones) feel extremely real and something you'd expect high school kids to solve, instead of a show where you see high school students solving murder cases or outwordly mysteries.

Thats the typical simpleton in many anime that can easily get stuck and carried away by other ppl's feelings.

But to say in the Hyouka's pov, i think Oreki's heart is so close and near to the Classic club, though it sometimes annoyed him coz messing his peaceful life, but he just couldn't ignore them. So when he deducted something that made his friends feeling bad, he couldn't ignore that. Its like betraying something close to his heart.

The burden of pain doubles when he realized that he was made to do such thing which betrayed his friends' feelings by a manipulative senpai, and triples when he realized that he was such an idiot to not realized that earlier.

Well thats what you get with a simpleton. Don't blame him for such over emotional act lol.

I don't think that's it. His friends weren't hurt at all. But I guess they know him better than we do, because they did everything they could to spare his feelings - short of just not telling him he was wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper

Brilliant. I'd give it 9.5 if I could. All questions that I remember popped up in previous episodes discussion got answered, especially "Why don't they just ask Hougou?" one.

About the outburst scene, I think we have to consider that they (the stuff) intentionally add music, camera angle, voice acting and etc. to make it dramatic. After all, they want to show that he's serious.

Once you take that into account, I don't think it's over dramatized. For all we know, Houtarou has been living a grey life. He never think he has any talent (Implied in episode 7 that it's most likely because he's constantly overshadowed by his sister.) This is the first time he was told he is needed. He's special, and no one else can do it. Then he realized it's all a lie. I might not go and confronted the person who said it like he did, but I'll certainly feel like crap like he was.

Yeah, I think that's much closer to the truth. For all his outward indifference, there's been several clues all along that he's been yearning for a rose-colored life, but that he thinks it's unattainable. That his attitude is just a defensive mechanism to cope with disappointment. Irisu peeled away most of that armor and drove her knife home.

If really his sister is the instigator, and she did it because she knows her brother, then it was damn cruel. Maybe to be kind, but cruel all the same.

Quote:

I said last time that Irisu is a good leader, but not a great one. This episode strengthen that idea. There is no loyalty in her leadership, since all she can is "force" people to do things for her, directly or indirectly. She cannot "ask for a favor" from people. People will eventually realized, like Houtarou did, and get sick of it sooner or later.

I don't know about "force". She lied. That's not quite the same. And in Hongou's case, she at least was able to find a good compromise - the class don't end up with something they find "lame", and Hongou isn't forced to write a story she loathes.

But you're right - that kind of behavior doesn't inspire loyalty. Though it sounded like she was in a corner too, for some undisclosed reason, so maybe she behaves differently when she isn't pressured.

I don't know about "force". She lied. That's not quite the same. And in Hongou's case, she at least was able to find a good compromise - the class don't end up with something they find "lame", and Hongou isn't forced to write a story she loathes.

Yeah, I probably choose the wrong word. I meant she can use anything but honestly asking for help. Like you said, she even lied just to get the result.

Reading around the web, I'm quite surprised by how many people think Satoshi was overly dramatic. That he was jealous, or tried to get back at Houtarou for once. In my opinion, neither are true. My impression is he made it pretty clear that he cannot except the cameraman trick as Hougou's because he is confident in his database. There is no narrative trick in Holmes' stories. So unless Hougou is a second Agatha Christy, there is no way she'd think of that. That knowledge about such trivial information is his forte, and something he take pride in. He won't back down from that.

Yeah, I probably choose the wrong word. I meant she can use anything but honestly asking for help. Like you said, she even lied just to get the result.

I'm not sure about being constitutionally unable to honestly ask for help. It's possible she was trying to spare everyone's feelings, the way she protected Hongou's. It backfired because Houtarou figured it out, but what if he hadn't?

Location: All ghillied up spying on someone ~2,000 yards away using telescope sights.

Age: 26

Quote:

Originally Posted by linkinstreet

he was mad because he was being used. He was not mad with any of his friends, only Irisu

This, and seems there's a lot of underestimation of how one can get really mad over what they think is petty. And not just here, but everywhere else I see discussion of this episode.

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I like to run portable on my dude, so I ran while running runs in my portably portable, dude-like dude.Kazuma Kamachi FCSince we are all so trigger happy about certain behaviors that we do when talking about his works.

I'm not sure about being constitutionally unable to honestly ask for help. It's possible she was trying to spare everyone's feelings, the way she protected Hongou's. It backfired because Houtarou figured it out, but what if he hadn't?

Well I disagree. As Tomoe pointed out, she did that not to spare Hougou's or the class' feeling, but because she herself think the script is boring. Beside, if she kept up the way she treat other, no one will help her. She can only manipulate, pressure, lie, etc. Everything but "could you help me with this?"

I said before that I'd like to see Houtarou flat out reject her last episode because the way she ask for help is not honest. If this is not the last of her in this series, however, I'd love to see Houtarou say yes to Irisu who, for once, honestly asking for help. That is what I'd call a mature person.

Loved the dismissive smackdown by Houtarou's sister towards Irisu at the end of the episode.

"I'm the master (manipulator) now!"
"No, grasshopper. You have much more to learn."

Makes me wonder if Houtarou's sister will be the final antagonist. Wonder why is it so common in anime to have "I Mean Well" elder siblings that completely screw up your lives in psychopathic ways.

*burns your puppy alive*
"It's for your own good, young brother of mine."

With his sister's involvement in both major arcs, will she play one in the next one, and how so.

Cheers.

Seems like eldest siblings exist just to mess things up for the younger ones . For good, bad, or just to mess you up. Does make me wonder about Houtarou's sister though. Hard to know how much she actually saw coming in this whole series. I could read pushing him into the Classics Club as being a positive development for his person, but this incident just felt cruel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soul Assassin

This, and seems there's a lot of underestimation of how one can get really mad over what they think is petty. And not just here, but everywhere else I see discussion of this episode.

I can take that one. For whatever reason I got almost if not more upset than Houtarou himself about all of this . Maybe because I could see myself falling for that damn trickery and feeling like an idiot afterwards.

Is it possible that the real reason Chitanda and the other members of the classics club were wary of fully expressing their doubts about Houtaro's solution and thereby upsetting him was not because it was "wrong" but because they all knew that he had been played like a fiddle by Irisu? In other words, what they had been struggling to gently or in a roundabout way tell him was not that his ending was wrong, but that he had been strung along like a fool. If we view things that way, then all the hushed and ominous tones as well as Houtaro's fury at the teahouse suddenly makes perfect sense.

Houtaro's solution was not "wrong" any way you slice it. It made the most sense of all the available options, was extremely clever and creative, and it was a hit with the audience, as acknowledged by all the other three members of the club even as they were trying to tell Houtaro that something seemed "off." And if the solution demonstrates that Houtaro has real genius as a mystery writer, why would he be angry about that, even if he had to be tricked into realizing this hidden talent? It should have been a source of gratitude instead.

I think what really pissed him off was that, for all his vaunted deductive abilities, Houtaro was the last person in the club to figure out that Irisu had played him for a sucker, an irony that could not have been lost him. All his friends suspected as much, but none of them had the heart to tell him outright. As if being the last to find this out was not humiliating enough, Irisu rubbed salt into the wound by refusing to acknowledge what she had done to Houtaro, much less offer an apology. He had to lay everything out in her face to make it clear that he had busted her, and even after all that all he got out of her was a non-denial, the most tacit of admissions, and absolutely zero sympathy. What was translated as "that makes me happy" would probably have been better understood as "that will have to do."

Viewed in this light, I feel the reactions and behavior Houtaro and the others displayed appear perfectly appropriate and not all overwrought.

Is it possible that the real reason Chitanda and the other members of the classics club were wary of fully expressing their doubts about Houtaro's solution and thereby upsetting him was not because it was "wrong" but because they all knew that he had been played like a fiddle by Irisu? In other words, what they had been struggling to gently or in a roundabout way tell him was not that his ending was wrong, but that he had been strung along like a fool. If we view things that way, then all the hushed and ominous tones as well as Houtaro's fury at the teahouse suddenly makes perfect sense.

Houtaro's solution was not "wrong" any way you slice it. It made the most sense of all the available options, was extremely clever and creative, and it was a hit with the audience, as acknowledged by all the other three members of the club even as they were trying to tell Houtaro that something seemed "off." And if the solution demonstrates that Houtaro has real genius as a mystery writer, why would he be angry about that, even if he had to be tricked into realizing this hidden talent? It should have been a source of gratitude instead.

I think what really pissed him off was that, for all his vaunted deductive abilities, Houtaro was the last person in the club to figure out that Irisu had played him for a sucker, an irony that could not have been lost him. All his friends suspected as much, but none of them had the heart to tell him outright.

They knew his solution was wrong. I don't think they made the deductive leap to Irisu's role in this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyper

Well I disagree. As Tomoe pointed out, she did that not to spare Hougou's or the class' feeling, but because she herself think the script is boring.

Exactly. And instead of letting Hongou and everyone know it's boring, and maybe precipitate a confrontation when they find out nobody dies, she contrived that situation where everyone can back off gracefully - and they didn't even realize it.

They knew his solution was wrong. I don't think they made the deductive leap to Irisu's role in this.

The use of the word "wrong" may be throwing you off. If you change the term "wrong" to "not Hongou's" then you'll find that it doesn't take much of a deductive leap to figure out what just happened. If it's not Hongou's ending, then it can only be an Orecki original.

So what? Well, you can paraphrase what all three of his club mates were tactfully trying to tell him, each in their own way, as "do you realize that you wrote the whole ending of their movie and are getting zero credit for authorship?"

When you look at it that way, doesn't it suddenly seem obvious that he's been ripped off? And by who else?